Roses Are Red, Meganiums Are Green
by Kanna-Ophelia
Summary: Cassidy has found a new love, and almost everyone seems to be overjoyed for the happy couple. Especially Butch. Jesse, however, is not exactly being a little ray of sunshine. * 2nd chapter, in which James hides in a closet, is up *
1. In which a romantic discovery is made

Disclaimer: I really wish Pokémon was mine, but I'm only playing with the lovely Rocket girls and boys.

Warnings: Pretty girls making out, pretty boys in drag, some naughty language.  Cassidy/Domino (blondeshipping?), with a healthy smidgen of Jesse/Cassidy (yamushipping) and, if you look sideways, probably Jesse/James (queershipping.)

For my darling wife… To make her smile, and to aid in the "You WILL love Domino!" brainwashing process.

****Roses Are Red, Meganiums Are Green****

The dark clouds were gathering over Team Rocket HQ in Viridian City.  In every shadow, every alleyway, every dangerously secluded forest road outside of Viridian, the people of the pokémon world were, for a brief time, able to walk without fear.  The menace that usually threatened the wealth and pokémon of the unwary was, for a time, focussed elsewhere.  The minions of Giovanni had abandoned their usual haunts, clustering together for a single, terrible purpose, a purpose that struck fear even into the hearts of the most ruthless and daring agents.

The Boss' birthday party.

Some agents, of course, were more desperate than others.

"Pokéball, go!" shrieked James, his last stolen red-and-white, basic level pokéball flying through the air. It opened midway, letting lose a blast of the golden light that could trap a pokémon in its deadly aura.

He realised a split second later that he should be learning from the twerp's mistakes, not learning to follow them.  Yelling out like that – well, squealing out, if you happened to be James – had no effect on a pokéball's activation. What it *_did* do was warn his prey.  And, more fatally, it warned his partner._

Jesse' pokéball sped after his, on the same path. There was a resounding clunk, and two broken pokéballs fell to the forest floor.  The pokémon fixed beady eyes on them just long enough to register as isolence, and then wandered off into the Long Grass (TM).

"You idiot!" screamed Jesse, backhanding her partner. 

"I saw it first," James said petulantly, earning another blow. He decided to shut up.  Justice was only an abstract concept, and Jesse's fists were not.

"Now we have no present for the Boss," lamented Jesse, tears welling up in her eyes.  "What shall we do?  We'll never bribe our way back into his favour now."

"Youse are so convinced the Boss will love you if youse give him a weedle for a birthday present?  Only asking out of interest, of course," said Meowth.

Jesse and James fixed wide, horrified eyes on their pokémon partner for a long, emotional moment.  Then they collapsed to their knees, clinging to each other and sobbing.  "We'll never find a rare pokémon to give the Boss, and we're going to get f-fired..." they wailed in concert.

There was a flash of light as one of the pokéballs on Jesse's belt opened.  

"Woooooooooooooobbuffet," sighed the extremely rare and powerful psychic pokémon, patting its mistress on the head with one consoling flipper.

"Get back in your pokéball, you worthless balloon," snapped Jesse.

"Wooob," Wobbuffet said sadly, returning to its prison.

James climbed to his feet. "C'mon, Jess. Let's go pick wildflowers for the Boss or something, 'kay? Everyone likes flowers."

A few minutes later, his spirits had risen considerably.  Viridian Forest had the most entrancing golden rays of light sparkling through the trees, and his arms were full of brilliant dandelions and verdant weeds.  Jesse seemed happier, too. As long as she didn't get carried away and dive headfirst into a vileplume, thus forcing him into vile servitude at the drama queen's behest until she decided to admit to feeling less paralysed, her cheerfulness was all to the good.  James began to skip, just a little, and hum.  Finally he burst into full blown song.  "Lucky lucky I'm so pretty...."

"It don't go like that," Meowth objected.

"I thought I'd rewrite it to more accurately reflect my personal traits," James explained.  "Lucky lucky, nice for you to meet me-"

He was rudely interrupted by his nose connecting the back of his partner's head.  He fell to the ground, checking his precious profile for any unsightly breaks, and choking on fumes.  One day, he would really have to have a little chat with Jesse about the amount of hairspray she seemed to feel was necessary to keep her gleaming locks in place.

"James."

"I didn't mean to," he started automatically defending himself, before realising that something was very wrong.  Jesse wasn't screaming at him, or laughing derisively. Her voice was very small, and choked.

"James – look."

He clambered cautiously onto his hands and knees, and followed the direction of his best friend's trembling finger.

In a particularly idyllic glade just off the path, two figures in black Team Rocket uniforms were sprawled on dandelion-spangled grass, their arms wrapped around each other and their lips pressed together in an intimate kiss, oblivious to their own romantic surroundings.  Random sunbeams glimmered on two different shades of blonde hair, one burnished gold, the other mimosa yellow.  

"Meowth didn't know Cassidy and Domino knew each other," Meowth remarked without much interest.  Human mating rituals bored him, unless there were pokémon involved in some capacity.

One surprisingly sharp-toed do-me boot caught the feline creature in the ribs.  Then Jesse seized James' hand and marched him off in the other direction.

"Jesseeeee, you'll make me drop the Boss' birthday present," he complained, trying to catch wilting dandelions as they scattered.  "What's your problem, anyway? Those bitches deserve each other."

"She does NOT!" snapped Jesse, her face attempting to assume the same shade as her hair.

"Ah." James thought about this, as well as he could when he was hurtling down a forest path being dragged along by an angry woman in a miniskirt, and when using his brain was something he only attempted when forced in any case.  Still, there were patterns of behaviour he could recognise.  "Jesse, remember when I asked you how you knew Cassidy, and you said she was just some girl who used to keep hanging around you?"

"Yeah?"

"How precisely do you define hanging around?"

**=R=**

It was a few hours later... hours Jesse, James and Meowth considered themselves lucky to have survived.  Giovanni had not been exactly delighted with their tribute of dying wildflowers but, as they had lived through the experience, James and Meowth were already beginning to look upon the event as a success.  They wandered down into the private gardens to celebrate with the free food that was not supposed to be consumed until the party that night.

Jesse, for her part, was rather subdued, a term which in her case translated to neither wildly gleeful nor psychotically violent. James sent her a few worried glances, but he knew that pestering Jesse when she was depressed was not a good idea. She was too inclined to throw herself on the ground and sob in the focus of a blinding spotlight, cherry blossom petals whirling around her, as flashbacks played in the surrounding atmosphere. Often pink parasols were involved.  James was never entirely sure what to do when that happened.

She stopped dead in her tracks.  This time, James managed to dodge her lethal hair, and peeped over her shoulder.

Butch and Cassidy were among the many agents who had obviously decided to take advantage of the free food as well. Cheapskates, James thought bitterly.  But he had a suspicion that Jesse's increasingly murderous expression had less to do with the aqua-haired boy hoeing into cheesecake as with the perky little blonde who was perched on the table, hand-feeding Cassidy with sakura mochi.

Before he could stop her, Jesse had crossed the garden in a rush of fury. Her partners followed more slowly, praying that there would be a minimum of carnage. Of course, no one in the garden would be likely to report to an Officer Jenny, but Giovanni was unlikely to show indulgence to a low-level agent who murdered her superiors.  And the said agent's partners would probably go down with her.

"Get away from her!"

Domino gave Jesse a sidelong upwards glance, through her golden curls.  "Why should I?" she asked in bored tones. "And who are you to question me, anyway – white uniform," she added, her voice dripping scorn.

Cassidy reached out and took Domino's gloved hand in hers.  "She's Jesse, that stalker I told you about. No, wait, I didn't, did I – because she's of entirely no consequence."  She glimmered adoringly up at the younger girl.

"You're the one who stalks me!" Jesse fought for breath.  "Cassidy, you don't understand. You shouldn't be with her!  Get away now."

The older Rocket finally turned to her, purple eyes glittering and a smug smile playing on her lips.  "To echo our senior, why should I?"

"Because... because Domino's really really bad!" James sunk his head into his hands.

"Oh I assure, you, she's very very good," purred Cassidy.  "Particularly in comparison." Domino smiled fondly down at her, and kissed the back of her glove.

Someone is really going to die now, James realised dully. But to his astonishment, Jesse's actions remained lacking in explicit violence.

"I mean that she's _evil!" she insisted, stamping a booted foot._

Domino went into a fit of girlish giggles, and Butch spluttered cheesecake across the table.  Cassidy seemed to be finding it difficult to keep her composure as well.  "Not evil, Jesse? In Team Rocket? Tell me, my dear, did you read the recruitment posters at all – the ones that mentioned working for a sinister criminal organisation? Or haven't you learned to read yet? It would explain your grades at the Tech."

"I mean... really evil," Jesse said weakly.  Domino had tipped her head to one side and was scrutinising the redhead intently, as if trying to work out where she had seen her before. James, alarmed, began to try and drag his partner away. The last thing he wanted was for the Boss' favourite to overcome Mewtwo's memory wipe and recall exactly why she hated them.

"C'mon, Jess, let it drop," he muttered.  "She's not worthy of someone as fabulous as you, anyway," he added helpfully.  Flattery could sometimes control his partner's temper when nothing else could.

At that moment, Cassidy reached up and wrapped her arms around the younger woman's neck, drawing her head down to meet hers.  The garden suddenly fell into awed silence, as the women's mouths met in a decidedly unchaste kiss.  James noted that he could actually see Domino's tongue slip into Cassidy's mouth, and felt somewhat unwell.  He quickly looked away.

Jesse pirouetted wildly on one foot, looking for support.  "Butch!" screamed Jesse, as Cassidy lifted one hand to squeeze her senior agent's breast through her dress. "Make them stop it NOW!"  She raised a fist for emphasis.

The boy's mahogany eyes seemed to have been given a good layer of varnish, judging from their glazed look.  "Why?" he croaked, watching with fascination as Domino, without breaking the kiss, slid off the table and into Cassidy's lap.  Usually laconic, he seemed to feel that the situation required another sentence or two. "They've been like this for days," he said gleefully, if throatily. "Can't keep their hands off each other." There was a chorus of sighs at that remark.

"Jesse, please," hastily put in another male rocket. "Remember that Domino is your senior, and that it's not honourable to interfere with love in full bloom."

His partner Starr smiled sweetly at him.  "If you don't stop looking right now, Henry, nothing about you is going to be in full bloom ever again. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Miss Jesse!  Mr. James! How lucky to see you!  My happiness is great! This is my lucky day!"

James turned in relief at the rather frighteningly enthusiastic greeting.  Jesse, too, seemed to soften a little at the chance of the adoration and sympathy she deserved. "Mondo," she said sweetly.  "What do you think of all this... provocative and immoral behaviour, my darling little one?"

The young Rocket beamed back at her. "Miss Domino and Miss Cassidy have fallen in love!" he shouted gleefully.  "Don't they make a beautiful couple?! Almost as beautiful as you and Mr. James!"

From the sound of grinding teeth, James was beginning to suspect that Henry was not the only one in the garden in imminent danger of castration.


	2. In which James hides in a closet

"You're so beautiful… Jesse, you're the most beautiful, desirable woman on earth."

Jesse blinked, and tried to regain her concentration.  The trouble was, she thought sadly, looking as the girl in the mirror took on a charmingly pensive expression, that her reflection was so enticing.  It was hard to keep her attention on anything but self-adoration.

Now, what was she looking at her mirror for? Not that she really required an excuse for this activity– it was her favourite hobby, after all. But for the first time in years, she was staring at her reflection with just the tiniest, nastiest shadow of doubt dimming the glossy sheen of her narcissism.

Why would Cassidy prefer that little blonde bitch to her? Not that she would take Cassidy back if she came crawling on her hands and knees, of course, but she was not supposed to be _happy that they had split up. She certainly wasn't supposed to find a girlfriend who outranked Jesse and make out with her in public._

Jesse glared at her reflection.  Her eyes were larger and a more vibrant blue than Domino's guiless baby blues.  Her face was... perfection itself.  She realised she was beginning to slip off into a happy daydream again, and jerked herself back to her attempt at critical self-analysis. Her figure... Well, some people did prefer smaller breasts, thinking they were perky or some such nonsense.  Jesse ignored people with such clearly deluded ideas.  But it was Cassidy whose tastes were in question, so Jesse's breasts being too large was unlikely to cause a problem.

Her hair...

Jesse considered her hair.  She had worn her hair in the same sweeping curve ever since she had graduated from plaits. It was still unique and stylish, if a little expensive in styling products. But...

She remembered the way Domino's bright curls had bounced on her shoulders. The breeze had caught them like some living thing, like the quivering flames of a ponyta's mane.  Her hair had obviously never seen a bottle of hairspray in her life.  Jesse had always taken pride in the fact that it would take a hurricane to force her hair to move, but maybe that was a... miscalculation.

She bit her lip in determination. If Cassidy went for the cute innocent look, well, Jesse could play too. And then she could reject Cassidy and leave her downing in the slough of despair, and the world would be back on its proper axis.

She picked up her brush and a velcro roller, setting to work.

                                                            =R=

"James."

Jesse's partners were taking an afternoon nap on the double bed that was the standard for that hotbed of immorality, Team Rocket Headquarters. Jesse checked the clock, and noted that she had barely four hours to do her makeup before the party.  Well, at least her hair was done.

She sighed, and looked down at her boys. Meowth was curled into the crook of James' knee. They looked absolutely adorable. They were so damn sweet sometimes, she reflected indulgently.

"WAKE UP JAMES!" She jumped onto the bed and kicked him soundly in the ribs.

He stared up at her with wide, petrified eyes.  She primped a little.  "What do you think?" she asked sweetly, fluffing up one curl.

"J  - J..."

Jesse simpered.  Her new look obviously suited her. "Yes, James? What are you trying to say?"

"Jess – Jess  -"

The cute appeal of his speechlessness was beginning to wear off.  Jesse bent down, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him to his feet, thrusting her face into his. "Tell me now!"

"Jess – J-Jess – Jess- "

She was running out of patience with his stammering.  "Tell me I'm gorgeous right now, or die. Your choice."

He swallowed, trembling. "You look... beautiful as ever, mistress."

"Good," Jesse said happily.  James had never called her mistress before, but it was probably something worth encouraging. She liked the ring of it in her ears.  Mistress. It suited her. She smirked.

"Save me, Growlithe," James whispered, and fainted dead away.  

Jesse dropped him on the bed, ignoring it when he rolled off to land in a crumpled heap on the floor. She let her mind drift back to a woman who did not, despite what anyone who was too blind to make an effective witness would say, look anything like her, and who happened to be betrothed to James.   She mentally did a quick comparison between Jessibelle's choice of hairstyle, and that affected by Domino.

"Damn." She began to rake out the curls with her fingers.

                                                 =R=

"Now, James, I have a wonderful idea," Jesse said happily.  While her friend was unconscious, she had been thinking over her problems, and hit upon the perfect way to prove to the world that she could not care less if Cassidy chose to hang around with a gaol-bait tramp. And, incidentally, she would demonstrate to Cassidy just what she was missing.  "Do you want to hear it?"

"Yes, mistress."

"For the thousandth fucking time, I'm not Jessibelle!" she screeched, raising her fist. Unfortunately, she happened to have been playing with her Official Team Rocket Whip at the time.  James' eyes fixed on it, and he whimpered, cowering further back in his chair.

"If you say so, mistress."

"Good." She looked sceptically at him, but decided to let it pass.  "Now, here's my idea." She arranged her features in a sweet, pleading expression, and mentally instructed her eyes to go all wobbly. "You're my only real friend in the entire world, James, do you know that?  Ever since that fickle slut Tyra betrayed me for that redheaded twerp, although why anyone would want a flat chested little tomboy like -" She realised she was ranting, and hastily regained her sugary tone. "You're all I have, James."

"What about Meowth?" sleepily protested the cat pokémon.

"Shut up.  And... you're almost as good-looking  as I am..."

James muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Huh," but she chose to ignore it. After all, his eyes were going wobbly with tears, too. She just hoped they were sentimental tears, and not ones provoked by the fear that he was back in his fiancée's power.  "So I was thinking..." She took his hands gently in hers. "James, dear?"

"Yes, Jesse?" He looked nervously up at her, but she had remembered to put down the whip this time.

"I think it's time we moved our relationship to the next level." She closed her eyes and leaned in towards him.

                                                   =R=

"Open the fucking door!"

"No!"

James could hear the toe of Jesse's boot smashing into the door, but it held fast. "You can't hide in a closet all your life, James!"

"Why not? You do!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

There was a silence as James tried to think of an answer which would guarantee his survival. "Nothing."  He huddled into his nice dark corner.  He was safe in his closet, and he shared it with pretty dresses.  He could stay there quite happily for a long time.

There was a flash of light from the cracks under the closet door. "Arbok, tear the door down and fetch that snivelling coward out so I can kiss him."

"Jesse," Meowth said worriedly, "you can't let Arbok out in..."

"Chhhhaaaaraboooooooook."

There were some noises of treasured possessions smashing and a shriek as Jesse realised why it was a bad idea to let a giant cobra out of a pokéball, at least in a room barely bigger than, say, a closet.  It was followed by another flash of light.  "That was your fault too, James."

"Yes, mistress."

"Stop saying that!  And come out and kiss me like a man." 

"I would have thought being kissed like a man was the last thing you were interested in, Jess," James pointed out, somewhat unwisely.

There was the sound of a door opening and slamming, and then silence.  James began to calculate his odds of creeping out and making a run for it.  Of course, knowing Jesse, the door slamming was probably a trick, and she was waiting just outside the closet with a giant mallet, waiting to brain him.  He decided to occupy himself going through the closet contents instead.

Eventually, Jesse must have decided her ruse wasn't working, because he next heard her voice raised pathetically. "James?"

"Yes, Jesse?"

"Why have you and Cassidy both rejected me?  Am I not pretty enough?" Her voice caught on a sob. "Am I too outspoken?  Why do you see right through me?"

"Well, you may not be as pretty as I am, and you do tend to scream a lot."

There was a howl of rage and the sounds of paper fans pounding against the door.  James waited for them to subside a little, and added, "But that's not why I won't kiss you, Jess."

"Well, then, why not?"

James sighed. "I'm sitting in a closet, Jesse.  What do you think this is intended to represent?"

"That you're a pathetic scaredy-cat!"

"Hey!" protested Meowth.

"Listen, Jess, it wouldn't work out anyway. Why don't we go back to Sunnytown after all this? You can reconcile with Tyra, and flaunt her in Cassidy's face.  Tyra's much prettier than Domino, you know.  Not as pretty as me, but she'll do.  Cassidy will be so jealous she'll look like a meganium."

Jesse sniffled a little, but she seemed in far better control of herself.  James began to relax a little.  Then he noticed something with distracted him entirely from his partner's heartbreak, and his own impending doom.  He investigated.

"What're you doing in there?" Meowth's suspicious voice came through the door.  James called out to his partner instead.

"Yeah?" she demanded, sulkily.  "Are you reconsidering yet?"

"This is a weightless boned E-cup bustier, isn't it?  The red satin one with little pink quilted hearts, I mean – the one you wear with your long red dress."  He couldn't really make out the colours in the darkness, but he had a good memory for women's underwear.

"So? You're the lingerie expert. What's your point?"

"Well, you're a C, maybe D-cup at most, Jesse. Perhaps DD at that time of month, but that's really stretching it.  This bustier would fit Prima.  What do you do, put shoulder pads down the front?"

Sometimes James' brain had difficulty catching up with his mouth, especially was he was engaged on a subject he found fascinating.  He had asked about the bustier out of purely technical interest.  It was always nice to pick up handy hints, and Jesse was usually perfectly willing to discuss fashion secrets, often for hours at a time.  It was only when the door began to shake under repeated blows that he realised that perhaps was not the time to work on his career as a designer.  Especially as Jesse was pointing out, between expletives, he was the expert on bra-stuffing in the team.

"Meowth hates to interrupt your bonding session, but we're going to be late to the Boss' party."

There was a chilling silence.  James, for lack of a nearby partner, hugged himself in terror.

"James! James, it's okay, you can come out… I won't kiss you."  Jesse sounded very frightened.  "James, please, I have to get to my clothes."

"You have to promise not to hit me either."

"You little w- I mean, I promise. Please, James. I can't go to the party in my uniform.  Not when Domino will be dressed to the nines."

She sounded genuinely depressed.  James melted despite himself.  He was being so selfish.  The woman he cared about more than anyone else in the world was facing being not the best dressed woman in the room for the first time since…the last time he had worn drag, and here he was cowering in a closet.

"Okay," he said reluctantly.  "I'm all dressed, anyway."  He slowly opened the door.

Meowth and Jesse gazed expressionlessly at him. Finally, Jesse said slowly, "I'd better not let your near Cassidy, or she'll have her tongue down your throat in less than thirty seconds. James? James, open that closet door right now!"

           =tbc=


End file.
